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I guess it is quite a refreshing idea from the usual pick and choose web site enabled planners that we see online way too often now.

I had an idea when you were talking about this idea - just an extension to what you already have in mind. Look, have a system which can plan out your perfect itinerary having taking into account our personal preferences and the plans are all meted out without any regard to price.  The focus is on customization.

Your idea summarized above ought to form the core of your business while it would do good if you include practical tips on different travel destinations before the customers choose their plans. Loads and loads of information about attractive and exotic locales coupled with a system to help them book hotels and flights while reading up or after reading this info. This will also fetch you organic traffic through the search engines.

So, what are you thinking?


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Thanks for your response, pretty cool! You are probably right that focusing on price only is too competitive and also too expensive in delivering the service because there would be human beings who are searching for the best travel possibilities. The trend in travel tends to go to very personalized things anyway, so a travel search service focussing on real customer needs should be pretty demanding, maybe. But some questions occur:
How can you differentiate from a classical travel agency?
Where does the revenue come from? Personally I´m not a big fan of advertising fees from travel companies.
Would you as a customer pay for such a service? If yes, how much probably?

Thanks for your thoughts!

A classical travel agency looks to book some fancy airline tickets and hotel reservations. You should be looking at this obviously but rather customize it to your customer`s specifications. I can assure of one thing though - if a web hosting company like rackspace.com can manage to charge sky-high prices taking its "fanatical support" and high-customization, I am sure you can too. You should probably sit down and write a business plan and figure out what you can do. I have a few thoughts on this :

• Travel agents have fixed partners spread across the locale you`d be considering. You can be different  by not plonking a fixed airplane-hotel booking but rather find out what your customers want and then go about doing the booking for them. Corporate execs have different needs when compared to back-packers and beach shackers. :-)
  
• If you can develop a system wherein customers can chat online "live", talk to a representative, view, read, get informed, click, point and buy plans - it could be a cool added feature.
  
• You must ensure that you build multiple revenues of income - Income from your website content, income from your other travel partners, commissions from all your partners, you could upsell something related to travel to your customers directly, charge higher based on some value addition.
  
• Being paranoid is the key in industries frought with competition. Ensure that you are on the top and constantly innovating. The day you become complacent, you will be doomed.
  

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I agree, the difference of my idea to travel agents should be much more personalized with the help of technology AND personal Know-how. But you have to manage it that you do NOT only recommend vacations which you get paid for by commisions from the deleiering travel partners...so you are not indepent anymore. Another difference should be that you don`t do the booking process for the customer (like a travel agency) because this is pretty regulated and also requires a lot of manpower and time.

The main question for me is, if I should develop a real web-based thing with a lot of content and features where customers can look around and use these services or do I use The Website only for the entry meaning to put in the customer needs and the rest will be made internally and the customer gets delivered prepared plans and results for his next vacation.

Do you know a service or something similar already? I searched quite a lot and found www.tripology.com and www.vacationcompare.com come closest to my idea.

I´m really thinking about charging the customer for that service but so far travel booking and other services are usually free for customers right now...almost..(expedia charges service fees f.e.)

I would say charge them and give them something they just can`t get anywhere.

Your idea of capturing info and capturing customer profiles and contact info and doing some planning and everything offline after consultation is great. You can certainly do that - I think it will work. rackpsace does it.

You should think of charging them if you can think of atleast 5 things you will give them for that money. USP and stuff like that. Make them feel that what they pay is nothing compared to what they are getting.


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Thanks a lot for your Feedback!!
Do you know where I could get also feedback of fresh business ideas like that?

It´s great you gave me feedback but unfortunately you are the only one so far here..:-(

I think it is a good idea if I clearly understand it. You plan to offer travlel agent services online. Unlike expedia etc., you intend to actually plan the trip for the individual. Am i right? If so, two things, one- I would not charge the consumer. A free service to consumers will draw crowds. two- offer me a list of things to do and see while at my destination, maybe the theatre or a nice restaurant or a popular bar. Let me choose, then charge the theatre, restaurant, or bar for recommending them. With enough advertisers on board, you`ll make a fortune.

For instance, i need to go to Denver in December for a business trip. I will be arriving Thursday evening, i need a hotel and rental car. I want to eat at a nice restaurant Thursday night, maybe a movie afterwards. Friday I have a meeting, I will need breakfast then dinner that evening and I also want to dance. I will leave Saturday morning.

If I can go online and have this all planned out, within a certain budget, you`ll have my business. See what I mean?

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Thanks for your reply jwatkins...very helpful..you are probably right not to charge the customer...but to get referral fees from thousands of bars, restaurants etc. is almost impossible. You need to make arrangements with every single spot...don`t you think so?

Are we thinking big or not? Of course you yourself could not contact every bar, restaurant, or theatre, but a salesforce could. Offer comission, post the job to craigslist, and look out. Expedia, travelocity, all those guys have contacted thousands of hotels, airlines, and rental car companies. They went for the big fish, all you need is a few little fishes. Take the Denver example for instance, choose four good hotels strategically positioned around the city, find a few restaurants, bars, etc. near those hotels, and go from there, don`t try to get every business in every city all at once. Start small, work steady and in no time it will be huge...however, it won`t be esay. How were you thinking of making money on this venture?

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